Classical Texts in Psychology

The Interpretation of Dreams
Sigmund Freud (1900)

CHAPTER 7 (part 2)
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM PROCESSES

Now that we know that throughout the night the preconscious is
orientated to the wish to sleep, we can follow the dream-process
with proper understanding. But let us first summarize what we
already know about this process. We have seen that day-residues
are left over from the waking activity of the mind, residues from
which it has not been possible to withdraw all cathexis. Either
one of the unconscious wishes has been aroused through the waking
activity during the day or it so happens that the two coincide;
we have already discussed the multifarious possibilities. Either
already during the day or only on the establishment of the state
of sleep the unconscious wish has made its way to the day- residues,
and has effected a transference to them. Thus there arises a wish
transferred to recent material; or the suppressed recent wish
is revived by a reinforcement from the unconscious. This wish
now endeavours to make its way to consciousness along the normal
path of the thought processes, through the preconscious, to which
indeed it belongs by virtue of one of its constituent elements.
It is, however, confronted by the censorship which still subsists,
and to whose influence it soon succumbs. It now takes on the distortion
for which the way has already been paved by the transference to
recent material. So far it is on the way to becoming something
resembling an obsession, a delusion, or the like, i.e., a thought
reinforced by a transference, and distorted in expression owing
to the censorship. But its further progress is now checked by
the state of sleep of the preconscious; this system has presumably
protected itself against invasion by diminishing its excitations.
The dream-process, therefore, takes the regressive course, which
is just opened up by the peculiarity of the sleeping state, and
in so doing follows the attraction exerted on it by memory- groups,
which are, in part only, themselves present as visual cathexis,
not as translations into the symbols of the later systems. On
its way to regression it acquires representability. The subject
of compression will be discussed later. The dream- process has
by this time covered the second part of its contorted course.
The first part threads its way progressively from the unconscious
scenes or phantasies to the preconscious, while the second part
struggles back from the boundary of the censorship to the tract
of the perceptions. But when the dream-process becomes a perception-content,
it has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in the Pcs by
the censorship and the sleeping state. It succeeds in drawing
attention to itself, and in being remarked by consciousness. For
consciousness, which for us means a sense- organ for the apprehension
of psychic qualities, can be excited in waking life from two sources:
firstly, from the periphery of the whole apparatus, the perceptive
system; and secondly, from the excitations of pleasure and pain
which emerge as the sole psychic qualities yielded by the transpositions
of energy in the interior of the apparatus. All other processes
in the Psi- systems, even those in the preconscious, are devoid
of all psychic quality, and are therefore not objects of consciousness,
inasmuch as they do not provide either pleasure or pain for its
perception. We shall have to assume that these releases of pleasure
and pain automatically regulate the course of the cathectic processes.
But in order to make possible more delicate performances, it subsequently
proved necessary to render the flow of ideas more independent
of pain-signals. To accomplish this, the Pcs system needed qualities
of its own which could attract consciousness, and most probably
received them through the connection of the preconscious processes
with the memory-system of speech-symbols, which was not devoid
of quality. Through the qualities of this system, consciousness,
hitherto only a sense- organ for perceptions, now becomes also
a sense-organ for a part of our thought-processes. There are now,
as it were, two sensory surfaces, one turned toward perception
and the other toward the preconscious thought-processes.

I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness which
is turned to the preconscious is rendered far more unexcitable
by sleep than the surface turned toward the P-system. The giving
up of interest in the nocturnal thought-process is, of course,
an appropriate procedure. Nothing is to happen in thought; the
preconscious wants to sleep. But once the dream becomes perception,
it is capable of exciting consciousness through the qualities
now gained. The sensory excitation performs what is in fact its
function; namely, it directs a part of the cathectic energy available
in the Pcs to the exciting cause in the form of attention. We
must therefore admit that the dream always has a waking effect-
that is, it calls into activity part of the quiescent energy of
the Pcs. Under the influence of this energy, it now undergoes
the process which we have described as secondary elaboration with
a view to coherence and comprehensibility. This means that the
dream is treated by this energy like any other perception-content;
it is subjected to the same anticipatory ideas as far, at least,
as the material allows. As far as this third part of the dream-process
has any direction, this is once more progressive.

To avoid misunderstanding, it will not be amiss to say a few words
as to the temporal characteristics of these dream- processes.
In a very interesting discussion, evidently suggested by Maury's
puzzling guillotine dream, Goblot tries to demonstrate that a
dream takes up no other time than the transition period between
sleeping and waking. The process of waking up requires time; during
this time the dream occurs. It is supposed that the final picture
of the dream is so vivid that it forces the dreamer to wake; in
reality it is so vivid only because when it appears the dreamer
is already very near waking. "Un reve, c'est un reveil qui
commence."[32]

It has already been pointed out by Dugas that Goblot, in order
to generalize his theory, was forced to ignore a great many facts.
There are also dreams from which we do not awaken; for example,
many dreams in which we dream that we dream. From our knowledge
of the dream-work, we can by no means admit that it extends only
over the period of waking. On the contrary, we must consider it
probable that the first part of the dream-work is already begun
during the day, when we are still under the domination of the
preconscious. The second phase of the dream-work, viz., the alteration
by the censorship, the attraction exercised by unconscious scenes,
and the penetration to perception, continues probably all through
the night, and accordingly we may always be correct when we report
a feeling that we have been dreaming all night, even although
we cannot say what we have dreamed. I do not however, think that
it is necessary to assume that up to the time of becoming conscious
the dream-processes really follow the temporal sequence which
we have described; viz., that there is first the transferred dream-wish,
then the process of distortion due to the censorship, and then
the change of direction to regression, etc. We were obliged to
construct such a sequence for the sake of description; in reality,
however, it is probably rather a question of simultaneously trying
this path and that, and of the excitation fluctuating to and fro,
until finally, because it has attained the most apposite concentration,
one particular grouping remains in the field. Certain personal
experiences even incline me to believe that the dream-work often
requires more than one day and one night to produce its result,
in which case the extraordinary art manifested in the construction
of the dream is shorn of its miraculous character. In my opinion,
even the regard for the comprehensibility of the dream as a perceptual
event may exert its influence before the dream attracts consciousness
to itself. From this point, however, the process is accelerated,
since the dream is henceforth subjected to the same treatment
as any other perception. It is like fire works, which require
hours for their preparation and then flare up in a moment.

Through the dream-work, the dream-process now either gains sufficient
intensity to attract consciousness to itself and to arouse the
preconscious (quite independently of the time or profundity of
sleep), or its intensity is insufficient, and it must wait in
readiness until attion, becoming more alert immediately before
waking, meets it half-way. Most dreams seem to operate with relatively
slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the process of waking.
This, then, explains the fact that as a rule we perceive something
dreamed if we are suddenly roused from a deep sleep. Here, as
well as in spontaneous waking, our first glance lights upon the
perception-content created by the dream-work, while the next falls
on that provided by the outer world.

But of greater theoretical interest are those dreams which are
capable of waking us in the midst of our sleep. We may bear in
mind the purposefulness which can be demonstrated in all other
cases, and ask ourselves why the dream, that is, the unconscious
wish, is granted the power to disturb our sleep, i.e., the fulfilment
of the preconscious wish. The explanation is probably to be found
in certain relations of energy which we do not yet understand.
If we did so, we should probably find that the freedom given to
the dream and the expenditure upon it of a certain detached attention
represent a saving of energy as against the alternative case of
the unconscious having to be held in check at night just as it
is during the day. As experience shows, dreaming, even if it interrupts
our sleep several times a night, still remains compatible with
sleep. We wake up for a moment, and immediately fall asleep again.
It is like driving off a fly in our sleep; we awake ad hoc. When
we fall asleep again we have removed the cause of disturbance.
The familiar examples of the sleep of wet-nurses, etc., show that
the fulfilment of the wish to sleep is quite compatible with the
maintenance of a certain amount of attention in a given direction.

But we must here take note of an objection which is based on a
greater knowledge of the unconscious processes. We have ourselves
described the unconscious wishes as always active, whilst nevertheless
asserting that in the daytime they are not strong enough to make
themselves perceptible. But when the state of sleep supervenes,
and the unconscious wish has shown its power to form a dream,
and with it to awaken the preconscious, why does this power lapse
after cognizance has been taken of the dream? Would it not seem
more probable that the dream should continually renew itself,
like the disturbing fly which, when driven away, takes pleasure
in returning again and again? What justification have we for our
assertion that the dream removes the disturbance to sleep?

It is quite true that the unconscious wishes are always active.
They represent paths which are always practicable, whenever a
quantum of excitation makes use of them. It is indeed an outstanding
peculiarity of the unconscious processes that they are indestructible.
Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; nothing is
past or forgotten. This is impressed upon us emphatically in the
study of the neuroses, and especially of hysteria. The unconscious
path of thought which leads to the discharge through an attack
is forthwith passable again when there is a sufficient accumulation
of excitation. The mortification suffered thirty years ago operates,
after having gained access to the unconscious sources of affect,
during all these thirty years as though it were a recent experience.
Whenever its memory is touched, it revives, and shows itself to
be cathected with excitation which procures a motor discharge
for itself in an attack. It is precisely here that psychotherapy
must intervene, its task being to ensure that the unconscious
processes are settled and forgotten. Indeed, the fading of memories
and the weak affect of impressions which are no longer recent,
which we are apt to take as self-evident, and to explain as a
primary effect of time on our psychic memory-residues, are in
reality secondary changes brought about by laborious work. It
is the preconscious that accomplishes this work; and the only
course which psychotherapy can pursue is to bring the Ucs under
the dominion of the Pcs.

There are, therefore, two possible issues for any single unconscious
excitation-process. Either it is left to itself, in which case
it ultimately breaks through somewhere and secures, on this one
occasion, a discharge for its excitation into motility, or it
succumbs to the influence of the preconscious, and through this
its excitation becomes bound instead of being discharged. It is
the latter case that occurs in the dream-process. The cathexis
from the Pcs which goes to meet the dream once this has attained
to perception, because it has been drawn thither by the excitation
of consciousness, binds the unconscious excitation of the dream
and renders it harmless as a disturber of sleep. When the dreamer
wakes up for a moment, he has really chased away the fly that
threatened to disturb his sleep. We may now begin to suspect that
it is really more expedient and economical to give way to the
unconscious wish, to leave clear its path to regression so that
and it may form a dream, and then to bind and dispose of this
dream by means of a small outlay of preconscious work, than to
hold the unconscious in check throughout the whole period of sleep.
It was, indeed, to be expected that the dream, even if originally
it was not a purposeful process, would have seized upon some definite
function in the play of forces of the psychic life. We now see
what this function is. The dream has taken over the task of bringing
the excitation of the Ucs, which had been left free, back under
the domination of the preconscious; it thus discharges the excitation
of the Ucs, acts as a safety-valve for the latter, and at the
same time, by a slight outlay of waking activity, secures the
sleep of the preconscious. Thus, like the other psychic formations
of its group, the dream offers itself as a compromise, serving
both systems simultaneously, by fulfilling the wishes of both,
in so far as they are mutually compatible. A glance at Robert's
"elimination theory" will show that we must agree with
this author on his main point, namely, the determination of the
function of dreams, though we differ from him in our general presuppositions
and in our estimation of the dream-process.[33]
-

But an obvious reflection must show us that this secondary function
of the dream has no claim to recognition within the framework
of any dream-interpretation. Thinking ahead, making resolutions,
sketching out attempted solutions which can then perhaps be realized
in waking life- these and many more performances are functions
of the unconscious and preconscious activities of the mind which
continue as day-residues in the sleeping state, and can then combine
with an unconscious wish to form a dream (chapter VII., C.). The
function of thinking ahead in the dream is thus rather a function
of preconscious waking thought, the result of which may be disclosed
to us by the analysis of dreams or other phenomena. After the
dream has so long been fused with its manifest content, one must
now guard against confusing it with the latent dream-thoughts.

The above qualification- in so far as the two wishes are mutually
compatible- contains a suggestion that there may be cases in which
the function of the dream fails. The dream-process is, to begin
with, admitted as a wish-fulfilment of the unconscious, but if
this attempted wish-fulfilment disturbs the preconscious so profoundly
that the latter can no longer maintain its state of rest, the
dream has broken the compromise, and has failed to perform the
second part of its task. It is then at once broken off, and replaced
by complete awakening. But even here it is not really the fault
of the dream if, though at other times the guardian, it has now
to appear as the disturber of sleep, nor need this prejudice us
against its averred purposive character. This is not the only
instance in the organism in which a contrivance that is usually
to the purpose becomes inappropriate and disturbing so soon as
something is altered in the conditions which engender it; the
disturbance, then, at all events serves the new purpose of indicating
the change, and of bringing into play against it the means of
adjustment of the organism. Here, of course, I am thinking of
the anxiety-dream, and lest it should seem that I try to evade
this witness against the theory of wish- fulfilment whenever I
encounter it, I will at least give some indications as to the
explanation of the anxiety-dream.

That a psychic process which develops anxiety may still be a wish-
fulfilment has long ceased to imply any contradiction for us.
We may explain this occurrence by the fact that the wish belongs
to one system (the Ucs), whereas the other system (the Pcs) has
rejected and suppressed it.[34] The subjection
of the Ucs by the Pcs is not thoroughgoing even in perfect psychic
health; the extent of this suppression indicates the degree of
our psychic normality. Neurotic symptoms indicate to us that the
two systems are in mutual conflict; the symptoms are the result
of a compromise in this conflict, and they temporarily put an
end to it. On the one hand, they afford the Ucs a way out for
the discharge of its excitation- they serve it as a kind of sally-
gate- while, on the other hand, they give the Pcs the possibility
of dominating the Ucs in some degree. It is instructive to consider,
for example, the significance of a hysterical phobia, or of agoraphobia.
A neurotic is said to be incapable of crossing the street alone,
and this we should rightly call a symptom. Let someone now remove
this symptom by constraining him to this action which he deems
himself incapable of performing. The result will be an attack
of anxiety, just as an attack of anxiety in the street has often
been the exciting cause of the establishment of an agoraphobia.
We thus learn that the symptom has been constituted in order to
prevent the anxiety from breaking out. The phobia is thrown up
before the anxiety like a frontier fortress.

We cannot enlarge further on this subject unless we examine the
role of the affects in these processes, which can only be done
here imperfectly. We will therefore affirm the proposition that
the principal reason why the suppression of the Ucs becomes necessary
is that, if the movement of ideas in the Ucs were allowed to run
its course, it would develop an affect which originally had the
character of pleasure, but which, since the process of repression,
bears the character of pain. The aim, as well as the result, of
the suppression is to prevent the development of this pain. The
suppression extends to the idea- content of the Ucs, because the
liberation of pain might emanate from this idea-content. We here
take as our basis a quite definite assumption as to the nature
of the development of affect. This is regarded as a motor or secretory
function, the key to the innervation of which is to be found in
the ideas of the Ucs. Through the domination of the Pcs these
ideas are as it were strangled, that is, inhibited from sending
out the impulse that would develop the affect. The danger which
arises, if cathexis by the Pcs ceases, thus consists in the fact
that the unconscious excitations would liberate an affect that-
in consequence of the repression that has previously occurred-
could only be felt as pain or anxiety.

This danger is released if the dream-process is allowed to have
its own way. The conditions for its realization are that repressions
shall have occurred, and that the suppressed wish- impulses can
become sufficiently strong. They, therefore, fall entirely outside
the psychological framework of dream-formation. Were it not for
the fact that our theme is connected by just one factor with the
theme of the development of anxiety, namely, by the setting free
of the Ucs during sleep, I could refrain from the discussion of
the anxiety-dream altogether, and thus avoid all the obscurities
involved in it.

The theory of the anxiety-dream belongs, as I have already repeatedly
stated, to the psychology of the neuroses. I might further add
that anxiety in dreams is an anxiety-problem and not a dream-problem.
Having once exhibited the point of contact of the psychology of
the neuroses with the theme of the dream- process, we have nothing
further to do with it. There is only one thing left which I can
do. Since I have asserted that neurotic anxiety has its origin
in sexual sources, I can subject anxiety- dreams to analysis in
order to demonstrate the sexual material in their dream-thoughts.

For good reasons, I refrain from citing any of the examples so
abundantly placed at my disposal by neurotic patients, and prefer
to give some anxiety-dreams of children.

Personally, I have had no real anxiety-dream for decades, but
I do recall one from my seventh or eighth year which I subjected
to interpretation some thirty years later. The dream was very
vivid, and showed me my beloved mother, with a peculiarly calm,
sleeping countenance, carried into the room and laid on the bed
by two (or three) persons with birds' beaks. I awoke crying and
screaming, and disturbed my parents' sleep. The peculiarly draped,
excessively tall figures with beaks I had taken from the illustrations
of Philippson's Bible; I believe they represented deities with
the heads of sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb- relief. The analysis
yielded, however, also the recollection of a house-porter's boy,
who used to play with us children on a meadow in front of the
house; I might add that his name was Philip. It seemed to me then
that I first heard from this boy the vulgar word signifying sexual
intercourse, which is replaced among educated persons by the Latin
word coitus, but which the dream plainly enough indicates by the
choice of the birds' heads. I must have guessed the sexual significance
of the word from the look of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother's
expression in the dream was copied from the countenance of my
grandfather, whom I had seen a few days before his death snoring
in a state of coma. The interpretation of the secondary elaboration
in the dream must therefore have been that my mother was dying;
the tomb-relief, too, agrees with this. I awoke with this anxiety,
and could not calm myself until I had waked my parents. I remember
that I suddenly became calm when I saw my mother; it was as though
I had needed the assurance: then she was not dead. But this secondary
interpretation of the dream had only taken place when the influence
of the developed anxiety was already at work. I was not in a state
of anxiety because I had dreamt that my mother was dying; I interpreted
the dream in this manner in the preconscious elaboration because
I was already under the domination of the anxiety. The latter,
however, could be traced back, through the repression to a dark,
plainly sexual craving, which had found appropriate expression
in the visual content of the dream.

A man twenty-seven years of age, who had been seriously ill for
a year, had repeatedly dreamed, between the ages of eleven and
thirteen, dreams attended with great anxiety, to the effect that
a man with a hatchet was running after him; he wanted to run away,
but seemed to be paralysed, and could not move from the spot.
This may be taken as a good and typical example of a very common
anxiety-dream, free from any suspicion of a sexual meaning. In
the analysis, the dreamer first thought of a story told him by
his uncle (chronologically later than the dream), viz., that he
was attacked at night in the street by a suspicious- looking individual;
and he concluded from this association that he might have heard
of a similar episode at the time of the dream. In association
with the hatchet, he recalled that during this period of his life
he once hurt his hand with a hatchet while chopping wood. This
immediately reminded him of his relations with his younger brother,
whom he used to maltreat and knock down. He recalled, in particular,
one occasion when he hit his brother's head with his boot and
made it bleed, and his mother said: "I'm afraid he will kill
him one day." While he seemed to be thus held by the theme
of violence, a memory from his ninth year suddenly emerged. His
parents had come home late and had gone to bed, whilst he was
pretending to be asleep. He soon heard panting, and other sounds
that seemed to him mysterious, and he could also guess the position
of his parents in bed. His further thoughts showed that he had
established an analogy between this relation between his parents
and his own relation to his younger brother. He subsumed what
was happening between his parents under the notion of "an
act of violence and a fight." The fact that he had frequently
noticed blood in his mother's bed corroborated this conception.

That the sexual intercourse of adults appears strange and alarming
to children who observe it, and arouses anxiety in them, is, I
may say, a fact established by everyday experience. I have explained
this anxiety on the ground that we have here a sexual excitation
which is not mastered by the child's understanding, and which
probably also encounters repulsion because their parents are involved,
and is therefore transformed into anxiety. At a still earlier
period of life the sexual impulse towards the parent of opposite
sex does not yet suffer repression, but as we have seen (chapter
V., D.) expresses itself freely.

For the night terrors with hallucinations (pavor nocturnus) so
frequent in children I should without hesitation offer the same
explanation. These, too, can only be due to misunderstood and
rejected sexual impulses which, if recorded, would probably show
a temporal periodicity, since an intensification of sexual libido
may equally be produced by accidentally exciting impressions and
by spontaneous periodic processes of development.

I have not the necessary observational material for the full demonstration
of this explanation.[35] On the other hand,
pediatrists seem to lack the point of view which alone makes intelligible
the whole series of phenomena, both from the somatic and from
the psychic side. To illustrate by a comical example how closely,
if one is made blind by the blinkers of medical mythology, one
may pass by the understanding of such cases, I will cite a case
which I found in a thesis on pavor nocturnus (Debacker, 1881,
p. 66).

A boy of thirteen, in delicate health, began to be anxious and
dreamy; his sleep became uneasy, and once almost every week it
was interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with hallucinations.
The memory of these dreams was always very distinct. Thus he was
able to relate that the devil had shouted at him: "Now we
have you, now we have you!" and then there was a smell of
pitch and brimstone, and the fire burned his skin. From this dream
he woke in terror; at first he could not cry out; then his voice
came back to him, and he was distinctly heard to say: "No,
no, not me; I haven't done anything," or: "Please, don't;
I will never do it again!" At other times he said: "Albert
has never done that!" Later he avoided undressing, "because
the fire attacked him only when he was undressed." In the
midst of these evil dreams, which were endangering his health,
he was sent into the country, where he recovered in the course
of eighteen months. At the age of fifteen he confessed one day:
"Je n'osais pas l'avouer, mais j'eprouvais continuellement
des picotements et des surexcitations aux parties;[36]
a la fin, cela m'enervait tant que plusieurs fois j'ai pense me
jeter par la fenetre du dortoir."[37]

It is, of course, not difficult to guess: 1. That the boy had
practised masturbation in former years, that he had probably denied
it, and was threatened with severe punishment for his bad habit
(His confession: Je ne le ferai plus;[38]
his denial: Albert n'a jamais fait ca.)[39]
2. That, under the advancing pressure of puberty, the temptation
to masturbate was re-awakened through the titillation of the genitals.
3. That now, however, there arose within him a struggle for repression,
which suppressed the libido and transformed it into anxiety, and
that this anxiety now gathered up the punishments with which he
was originally threatened.

Let us, on the other hand, see what conclusions were drawn by
the author (p. 69):

"1. It is clear from this observation that the influence
of puberty may produce in a boy of delicate health a condition
of extreme weakness, and that this may lead to a very marked cerebral
anaemia.[40]

"2. This cerebral anaemia produces an alteration of character,
demono-maniacal hallucinations, and very violent nocturnal, and
perhaps also diurnal, states of anxiety.

"3. The demonomania and the self-reproaches of the boy can
be traced to the influences of a religious education which had
acted upon him as a child.

"4. All manifestations disappeared as a result of a lengthy
sojourn in the country, bodily exercise, and the return of physical
strength after the termination of puberty.

"5. Possibly an influence predisposing to the development
of the boy's cerebral state may be attributed to heredity and
to the father's former syphilis."

E. The Primary and Secondary Processes. Repression

In attempting to penetrate more profoundly into the psychology
of the dream-processes, I have undertaken a difficult task, to
which, indeed, my powers of exposition are hardly adequate. To
reproduce the simultaneity of so complicated a scheme in terms
of a successive description, and at the same time to make each
part appear free from all assumptions, goes fairly beyond my powers.
I have now to atone for the fact that in my exposition of the
psychology of dreams I have been unable to follow the historic
development of my own insight. The lines of approach to the comprehension
of the dream were laid down for me by previous investigations
into the psychology of the neuroses, to which I should not refer
here, although I am constantly obliged to do so; whereas I should
like to work in the opposite direction, starting from the dream,
and then proceeding to establish its junction with the psychology
of the neuroses. I am conscious of all the difficulties which
this involves for the reader, but I know of no way to avoid them.

Since I am dissatisfied with this state of affairs, I am glad
to dwell upon another point of view, which would seem to enhance
the value of my efforts. As was shown in the introductory section,
I found myself confronted with a theme which had been marked by
the sharpest contradictions on the part of those who had written
on it. In the course of our treatment of the problems of the dream,
room has been found for most of these contradictory views. We
have been compelled to take decided exception to two only of the
views expressed: namely, that the dream is a meaningless process,
and that it is a somatic process. Apart from these, we have been
able to find a place for the truth of all the contradictory opinions
at one point or another of the complicated tissue of the facts,
and we have been able to show that each expressed something genuine
and correct. That our dreams continue the impulses and interests
of waking life has been generally confirmed by the discovery of
the hidden dream-thoughts. These concern themselves only with
things that seem to us important and of great interest. Dreams
never occupy themselves with trifles. But we have accepted also
the opposite view, namely, that the dream gathers up the indifferent
residues of the day, and cannot seize upon any important interest
of the day until it has in some measure withdrawn itself from
waking activity. We have found that this holds true of the dream-content,
which by means of distortion gives the dream-thought an altered
expression. We have said that the dream-process, owing to the
nature of the mechanism of association, finds it easier to obtain
possession of recent or indifferent material, which has not yet
been put under an embargo by our waking mental activity; and that,
on account of the censorship, it transfers the psychic intensity
of the significant but also objectionable material to the indifferent.
The hypermnesia of the dream and its ability to dispose of infantile
material have become the main foundations of our doctrine; in
our theory of dreams we have assigned to a wish of infantile origin
the part of the indispensable motive-power of dream-formation.
It has not, of course, occurred to us to doubt the experimentally
demonstrated significance of external sensory stimuli during sleep;
but we have placed this material in the same relation to the dream-wish
as the thought-residues left over from our waking activity. We
need not dispute the fact that the dream interprets objective
sensory stimuli after the manner of an illusion; but we have supplied
the motive for this interpretation, which has been left indeterminate
by other writers. The interpretation proceeds in such a way that
the perceived object is rendered harmless as a source of disturbance
of sleep, whilst it is made usable for the wish-fulfilment. Though
we do not admit as a special source of dreams the subjective state
of excitation of the sensory organs during sleep (which seems
to have been demonstrated by Trumbull Ladd), we are, nevertheless,
able to explain this state of excitation by the regressive revival
of the memories active behind the dream. As to the internal organic
sensations, which are wont to be taken as the cardinal point of
the explanation of dreams, these, too, find a place in our conception,
though indeed a more modest one. These sensations- the sensations
of falling, of soaring, or of being inhibited- represent an ever-ready
material, which the dream-work can employ to express the dream-
thought as often as need arises.

That the dream-process is a rapid and momentary one is, we believe,
true as regards the perception by consciousness of the preformed
dream-content; but we have found that the preceding portions of
the dream-process probably follow a slow, fluctuating course.
As for the riddle of the superabundant dream-content compressed
into the briefest moment of time, we have been able to contribute
the explanation that the dream seizes upon ready-made formations
of the psychic life. We have found that it is true that dreams
are distorted and mutilated by the memory, but that this fact
presents no difficulties, as it is only the last manifest portion
of a process of distortion which has been going on from the very
beginning of the dream-work. In the embittered controversy, which
has seemed irreconcilable, whether the psychic life is asleep
at night, or can make the same use of all its faculties as during
the day, we have been able to conclude that both sides are right,
but that neither is entirely so. In the dream-thoughts we found
evidence of a highly complicated intellectual activity, operating
with almost all the resources of the psychic apparatus; yet it
cannot be denied that these dream- thoughts have originated during
the day, and it is indispensable to assume that there is a sleeping
state of the psychic life. Thus, even the doctrine of partial
sleep received its due, but we have found the characteristic feature
of the sleeping state not in the disintegration of the psychic
system of connections, but in the special attitude adopted by
the psychic system which is dominant during the day- the attitude
of the wish to sleep. The deflection from the outer world retains
its significance for our view, too; though not the only factor
at work, it helps to make possible the regressive course of the
dream-representation. The abandonment of voluntary guidance of
the flow of ideas is incontestable; but psychic life does not
thereby become aimless, for we have seen that upon relinquishment
of the voluntary directing ideas, involuntary ones take charge.
On the other hand, we have not only recognized the loose associative
connection of the dream, but have brought a far greater area within
the scope of this kind of connection than could have been suspected;
we have, however, found it merely an enforced substitute for another,
a correct and significant type of association. To be sure, we
too have called the dream absurd, but examples have shown us how
wise the dream is when it simulates absurdity. As regards the
functions that have been attributed to the dream, we are able
to accept them all. That the dream relieves the mind, like a safety-valve,
and that, as Robert has put it, all kinds of harmful material
are rendered harmless by representation in the dream, not only
coincides exactly with our own theory of the twofold wish-fulfilment
in the dream, but in its very wording becomes more intelligible
for us than it is for Robert himself. The free indulgence of the
psyche in the play of its faculties is reproduced in our theory
as the non-interference of the preconscious activity with the
dream. The return of the embryonal standpoint of psychic life
in the dream, and Havelock Ellis's remark that the dream is "an
archaic world of vast emotions and imperfect thoughts," appear
to us as happy anticipations of our own exposition, which asserts
that primitive modes of operations that are suppressed during
the day play a part in the formation of dreams. We can fully identify
ourselves with Sully's statement, that "our dreams bring
back again our earlier and successively developed personalities,
our old ways of regarding things, with impulses and modes of reaction
which ruled us long ago"; and for us, as for Delage, the
suppressed material becomes the mainspring of the dream.

We have fully accepted the role that Scherner ascribes to the
dream-phantasy, and his own interpretations, but we have been
obliged to transpose them, as it were, to another part of the
problem. It is not the dream that creates the phantasy, but the
activity of unconscious phantasy that plays the leading part in
the formation of the dream-thoughts. We remain indebted to Scherner
for directing us to the source of the dream-thoughts, but almost
everything that he ascribes to the dream-work is attributable
to the activity of the unconscious during the day, which instigates
dreams no less than neurotic symptoms. The dream- work we had
to separate from this activity as something quite different and
far more closely controlled. Finally, we have by no means renounced
the relation of the dream to psychic disturbances, but have given
it, on new ground, a more solid foundation.

Held together by the new features in our theory as by a superior
unity, we find the most varied and most contradictory conclusions
of other writers fitting into our structure; many of them are
given a different turn, but only a few of them are wholly rejected.
But our own structure is still unfinished. For apart from the
many obscure questions in which we have involved ourselves by
our advance into the dark regions of psychology, we are now, it
would seem, embarrassed by a new contradiction. On the one hand,
we have made it appear that the dream-thoughts proceed from perfectly
normal psychic activities, but on the other hand we have found
among the dream-thoughts a number of entirely abnormal mental
processes, which extend also to the dream-content, and which we
reproduce in the interpretation of the dream. All that we have
termed the dream-work seems to depart so completely from the psychic
processes which we recognize as correct and appropriate that the
severest judgments expressed by the writers mentioned as to the
low level of psychic achievement of dreams must appear well founded.

Here, perhaps, only further investigations can provide an explanation
and set us on the right path. Let me pick out for renewed attention
one of the constellations which lead to dream- formation.

We have learned that the dream serves as a substitute for a number
of thoughts derived from our daily life, and which fit together
with perfect logic. We cannot, therefore, doubt that these thoughts
have their own origin in our normal mental life. All the qualities
which we value in our thought-processes, and which mark them out
as complicated performances of a high order, we shall find repeated
in the dream-thoughts. There is, however, no need to assume that
this mental work is performed during sleep; such an assumption
would badly confuse the conception of the psychic state of sleep
to which we have hitherto adhered. On the contrary, these thoughts
may very well have their origin in the daytime, and, unremarked
by our consciousness, may have gone on from their first stimulus
until, at the onset of sleep, they have reached completion. If
we are to conclude anything from this state of affairs, it can
only be that it proves that the most complex mental operations
are possible without the cooperation of consciousness- a truth
which we have had to learn anyhow from every psycho-analysis of
a patient suffering from hysteria or obsessions. These dream-thoughts
are certainly not in themselves incapable of consciousness; if
we have not become conscious of them during the day, this may
have been due to various reasons. The act of becoming conscious
depends upon a definite psychic function- attention- being brought
to bear. This seems to be available only in a determinate quantity,
which may have been diverted from the train of thought in question
by other aims. Another way in which such trains of thought may
be withheld from consciousness is the following: From our conscious
reflection we know that, when applying our attention, we follow
a particular course. But if that course leads us to an idea which
cannot withstand criticism, we break off and allow the cathexis
of attention to drop. Now, it would seem that the train of thought
thus started and abandoned may continue to develop without our
attention returning to it, unless at some point it attains a specially
high intensity which compels attention. An initial conscious rejection
by our judgment, on the ground of incorrectness or uselessness
for the immediate purpose of the act of thought, may, therefore,
be the cause of a thought-process going on unnoticed by consciousness
until the onset of sleep.

Let us now recapitulate: We call such a train of thought a preconscious
train, and we believe it to be perfectly correct, and that it
may equally well be a merely neglected train or one that has been
interrupted and suppressed. Let us also state in plain terms how
we visualize the movement of our thought. We believe that a certain
quantity of excitation, which we call cathectic energy, is displaced
from a purposive idea along the association paths selected by
this directing idea. A neglected train of thought has received
no such cathexis, and the cathexis has been withdrawn from one
that was suppressed or rejected; both have thus been left to their
own excitations. The train of thought cathected by some aim becomes
able under certain conditions to attract the attention of consciousness,
and by the mediation of consciousness it then receives hyper-cathexis.
We shall be obliged presently to elucidate our assumptions as
to the nature and function of consciousness.

A train of thought thus incited in the Pcs may either disappear
spontaneously, or it may continue. The former eventuality we conceive
as follows: it diffuses its energy through all the association
paths emanating from it, and throws the entire chain of thoughts
into a state of excitation, which continues for a while, and then
subsides, through the excitation which had called for discharge
being transformed into dormant cathexis. If this first eventuality
occurs, the process has no further significance for dream-formation.
But other directing ideas are lurking in our preconscious, which
have their source in our unconscious and ever- active wishes.
These may gain control of the excitation in the circle of thoughts
thus left to itself, establish a connection between it and the
unconscious wish, and transfer to it the energy inherent in the
unconscious wish. Henceforth the neglected or suppressed train
of thought is in a position to maintain itself, although this
reinforcement gives it no claim to access to consciousness. We
may say, then, that the hitherto preconscious train of thought
has been drawn into the unconscious.

Other constellations leading to dream-formation might be as follows:
The preconscious train of thought might have been connected from
the beginning with the unconscious wish, and for that reason might
have met with rejection by the dominating aim- cathexis. Or an
unconscious wish might become active for other (possibly somatic)
reasons, and of its own accord seek a transference to the psychic
residues not cathected by the Pcs. All three cases have the same
result: there is established in the preconscious a train of thought
which, having been abandoned by the preconscious cathexis, has
acquired cathexis from the unconscious wish.

From this point onward the train of thought is subjected to a
series of transformations which we no longer recognize as normal
psychic processes, and which give a result that we find strange,
a psychopathological formation. Let us now emphasize and bring
together these transformations:

1. The intensities of the individual ideas become capable of discharge
in their entirety, and pass from one idea to another, so that
individual ideas are formed which are endowed with great intensity.
Through the repeated occurrence of this process, the intensity
of an entire train of thought may ultimately be concentrated in
a single conceptual unit. This is the fact of compression or condensation
with which we become acquainted when investigating the dream-work.
It is condensation that is mainly responsible for the strange
impression produced by dreams, for we know of nothing analogous
to it in the normal psychic life that is accessible to consciousness.
We get here, too, ideas which are of great psychic significance
as nodal points or as end-results of whole chains of thought,
but this value is not expressed by any character actually manifest
for our internal perception; what is represented in it is not
in any way made more intensive. In the process of condensation
the whole set of psychic connections becomes transformed into
the intensity of the idea-content. The situation is the same as
when, in the case of a book, I italicize or print in heavy type
any word to which I attach outstanding value for the understanding
of the text. In speech, I should pronounce the same word loudly,
and deliberately, and with emphasis. The first simile points immediately
to one of the examples which were given of the dream-work (trimethylamine
in the dream of Irma's injection). Historians of art call our
attention to the fact that the most ancient sculptures known to
history follow a similar principle, in expressing the rank of
the persons represented by the size of the statues. The king is
made two or three times as tall as his retinue or his vanquished
enemies. But a work of art of the Roman period makes use of more
subtle means to accomplish the same end. The figure of the Emperor
is placed in the centre, erect and in his full height, and special
care is bestowed on the modelling of this figure; his enemies
are seen cowering at his feet; but he is no longer made to seem
a giant among dwarfs. At the same time, in the bowing of the subordinate
to his superior, even in our own day, we have an echo of this
ancient principle of representation.

The direction followed by the condensations of the dream is prescribed
on the one hand by the true preconscious relations of the dream-thoughts,
and, on the other hand, by the attraction of the visual memories
in the unconscious. The success of the condensation-work produces
those intensities which are required for penetration to the perception-system.

2. By the free transference of intensities, and in the service
of the condensation, intermediary ideas- compromises, as it were-
are formed (cf. the numerous examples). This, also, is something
unheard of in the normal movement of our ideas, where what is
of most importance is the selection and the retention of the right
conceptual material. On the other hand, composite and compromise
formations occur with extraordinary frequency when we are trying
to find verbal expression for preconscious thoughts; these are
considered slips of the tongue.

3. The ideas which transfer their intensities to one another are
very loosely connected, and are joined together by such forms
of association as are disdained by our serious thinking, and left
to be exploited solely by wit. In particular, assonances and punning
associations are treated as equal in value to any other associations.

4. Contradictory thoughts do not try to eliminate one another,
but continue side by side, and often combine to form condensation-
products, as though no contradiction existed; or they form compromises
for which we should never forgive our thought, but which we frequently
sanction in our action.

These are some of the most conspicuous abnormal processes to which
the dream-thoughts which have previously been rationally formed
are subjected in the course of the dream-work. As the main feature
of these processes, we may see that the greatest importance is
attached to rendering the cathecting energy mobile and capable
of discharge; the content and the intrinsic significance of the
psychic elements to which these cathexes adhere become matters
of secondary importance. One might perhaps assume that condensation
and compromise-formation are effected only in the service of regression,
when the occasion arises for changing thoughts into images. But
the analysis- and still more plainly the synthesis- of such dreams
as show no regression towards images, e.g., the dream Autodidasker:
Conversation with Professor N, reveals the same processes of displacement
and condensation as do the rest.

We cannot, therefore, avoid the conclusion that two kinds of essentially
different psychic processes participate in dream- formation; one
forms perfectly correct and fitting dream- thoughts, equivalent
to the results of normal thinking, while the other deals with
these thoughts in a most astonishing and, as it seems, incorrect
way. The latter process we have already set apart in chapter VI
as the dream-work proper. What can we say now as to the derivation
of this psychic process?

It would be impossible to answer this question here if we had
not penetrated a considerable way into the psychology of the neuroses,
and especially of hysteria. From this, however, we learn that
the same "incorrect" psychic processes- as well as others
not enumerated- control the production of hysterical symptoms.
In hysteria, too, we find at first a series of perfectly correct
and fitting thoughts, equivalent to our conscious ones, of whose
existence in this form we can, however, learn nothing, i.e., which
we can only subsequently reconstruct. If they have forced their
way anywhere to perception, we discover from the analysis of the
symptom formed that these normal thoughts have been subjected
to abnormal treatment, and that by means of condensation and compromise-formation,
through superficial associations which cover up contradictions,
and eventually along the path of regression, they have been conveyed
into the symptom. In view of the complete identity between the
peculiarities of the dream-work and those of the psychic activity
which issues in psychoneurotic symptoms, we shall feel justified
in transferring to the dream the conclusions urged upon us by
hysteria.

From the theory of hysteria we borrow the proposition that such
an abnormal psychic elaboration of a normal train of thought takes
place only when the latter has been used for the transference
of an unconscious wish which dares from the infantile life and
is in a state of repression. Complying with this proposition,
we have built up the theory of the dream on the assumption that
the actuating dream-wish invariably originates in the unconscious;
which, as we have ourselves admitted, cannot be universally demonstrated,
even though it cannot be refuted. But in order to enable us to
say just what repression is, after employing this term so freely,
we shall be obliged to make a further addition to our psychological
scaffolding.

We had elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic apparatus,
the work of which is regulated by the effort to avoid accumulation
of excitation, and as far as possible to maintain itself free
from excitation. For this reason it was constructed after the
plan of a reflex apparatus; motility, in the first place as the
path to changes within the body, was the channel of discharge
at its disposal. We then discussed the psychic results of experiences
of gratification, and were able at this point to introduce a second
assumption, namely, that the accumulation of excitation- by processes
that do not concern us here- is felt as pain, and sets the apparatus
in operation in order to bring about again a state of gratification,
in which the diminution of excitation is perceived as pleasure.
Such a current in the apparatus, issuing from pain and striving
for pleasure, we call a wish. We have said that nothing but a
wish is capable of setting the apparatus in motion and that the
course of any excitation in the apparatus is regulated automatically
by the perception of pleasure and pain. The first occurrence of
wishing may well have taken the form of a hallucinatory cathexis
of the memory of gratification. But this hallucination, unless
it could be maintained to the point of exhaustion, proved incapable
of bringing about a cessation of the need, and consequently of
securing the pleasure connected with gratification.

Thus, there was required a second activity- in our terminology
the activity of a second system- which would not allow the memory-
cathexis to force its way to perception and thence to bind the
psychic forces, but would lead the excitation emanating from the
need-stimulus by a detour, which by means of voluntary motility
would ultimately so change the outer world as to permit the real
perception of the gratifying object. Thus far we have already
elaborated the scheme of the psychic apparatus; these two systems
are the germ of what we set up in the fully developed apparatus
as the Ucs and Pcs.

To change the outer world appropriately by means of motility requires
the accumulation of a large total of experiences in the memory-systems,
as well as a manifold consolidation of the relations which are
evoked in this memory-material by various directing ideas. We
will now proceed further with our assumptions. The activity of
the second system, groping in many directions, tentatively sending
forth cathexes and retracting them, needs on the one hand full
command over all memory- material, but on the other hand it would
be a superfluous expenditure of energy were it to send along the
individual thought-paths large quantities of cathexis, which would
then flow away to no purpose and thus diminish the quantity needed
for changing the outer world. Out of a regard for purposiveness,
therefore, I postulate that the second system succeeds in maintaining
the greater part of the energic cathexes in a state of rest, and
in using only a small portion for its operations of displacement.
The mechanics of these processes is entirely unknown to me; anyone
who seriously wishes to follow up these ideas must address himself
to the physical analogies, and find some way of getting a picture
of the sequence of motions which ensues on the excitation of the
neurones. Here I do no more than hold fast to the idea that the
activity of the first Psi-system aims at the free outflow of the
quantities of excitation, and that the second system, by means
of the cathexes emanating from it, effects an inhibition of this
outflow, a transformation into dormant cathexis, probably with
a rise of potential. I therefore assume that the course taken
by any excitation under the control of the second system is bound
to quite different mechanical conditions from those which obtain
under the control of the first system. After the second system
has completed its work of experimental thought, it removes the
inhibition and damming up of the excitations and allows them to
flow off into motility.

An interesting train of thought now presents itself if we consider
the relations of this inhibition of discharge by the second system
to the process of regulation by the pain-principle. Let us now
seek out the counterpart of the primary experience of gratification,
namely, the objective experience of fear. Let a perception-stimulus
act on the primitive apparatus and be the source of a pain-excitation.
There will then ensue uncoordinated motor manifestations, which
will go on until one of these withdraws the apparatus from perception,
and at the same time from the pain. On the reappearance of the
percept this manifestation will immediately be repeated (perhaps
as a movement of flight), until the percept has again disappeared.
But in this case no tendency will remain to recathect the perception
of the source of pain by hallucination or otherwise. On the contrary,
there will be a tendency in the primary apparatus to turn away
again from this painful memory-image immediately if it is in any
way awakened, since the overflow of its excitation into perception
would, of course, evoke (or more precisely, begin to evoke) pain.
This turning away from a recollection, which is merely a repetition
of the former flight from perception, is also facilitated by the
fact that, unlike the perception, the recollection has not enough
quality to arouse consciousness, and thereby to attract fresh
cathexis. This effortless and regular turning away of the psychic
process from the memory of anything that had once been painful
gives us the prototype and the first example of psychic repression.
We all know how much of this turning away from the painful, the
tactics of the ostrich, may still be shown as present even in
the normal psychic life of adults.

In obedience to the pain-principle, therefore, the first Psi-
system is quite incapable of introducing anything unpleasant into
the thought-nexus. The system cannot do anything but wish. If
this were to remain so, the activity of thought of the second
system, which needs to have at its disposal all the memories stored
up by experience, would be obstructed. But two paths are now open:
either the work of the second system frees itself completely from
the pain-principle, and continues its course, paying no heed to
the pain attached to given memories, or it contrives to cathect
the memory of the pain in such a manner as to preclude the liberation
of pain. We can reject the first possibility, as the pain-principle
also proves to act as a regulator of the cycle of excitation in
the second system; we are therefore thrown back upon the second
possibility, namely, that this system cathects a memory in such
a manner as to inhibit any outflow of excitation from it, and
hence, also, the outflow, comparable to a motor-innervation, needed
for the development of pain. And thus, setting out from two different
starting-points, i.e., from regard for the pain-principle, and
from the principle of the least expenditure of innervation, we
are led to the hypothesis that cathexis through the second system
is at the same time an inhibition of the discharge of excitation.
Let us, however, keep a close hold on the fact- for this is the
key to the theory of repression- that the second system can only
cathect an idea when it is in a position to inhibit any pain emanating
from this idea. Anything that withdrew itself from this inhibition
would also remain inaccessible for the second system, i.e., would
immediately be given up by virtue of the pain- principle. The
inhibition of pain, however, need not be complete; it must be
permitted to begin, since this indicates to the second system
the nature of the memory, and possibly its lack of fitness for
the purpose sought by the process of thought.

The psychic process which is alone tolerated by the first system
I shall now call the primary process; and that which results under
the inhibiting action of the second system I shall call the secondary
process. I can also show at another point for what purpose the
second system is obliged to correct the primary process. The primary
process strives for discharge of the excitation in order to establish
with the quantity of excitation thus collected an identity of
perception; the secondary process has abandoned this intention,
and has adopted instead the aim of an identity of thought. All
thinking is merely a detour from the memory of gratification (taken
as a purposive idea) to the identical cathexis of the same memory,
which is to be reached once more by the path of motor experiences.
Thought must concern itself with the connecting-paths between
ideas without allowing itself to be misled by their intensities.
But it is obvious that condensations of ideas and intermediate
or compromise-formations are obstacles to the attainment of the
identity which is aimed at; by substituting one idea for another
they swerve away from the path which would have led onward from
the first idea. Such procedures are, therefore, carefully avoided
in our secondary thinking. It will readily be seen, moreover,
that the pain- principle, although at other times it provides
the thought- process with its most important clues, may also put
difficulties in its way in the pursuit of identity of thought.
Hence, the tendency of the thinking process must always be to
free itself more and more from exclusive regulation by the pain-principle,
and to restrict the development of affect through the work of
thought to the very minimum which remains effective as a signal.
This refinement in functioning is to be achieved by a fresh hyper-
cathexis, effected with the help of consciousness. But we are
aware that this refinement is seldom successful, even in normal
psychic life, and that our thinking always remains liable to falsification
by the intervention of the pain-principle.

This, however, is not the breach in the functional efficiency
of our psychic apparatus which makes it possible for thoughts
representing the result of the secondary thought-work to fall
into the power of the primary psychic process; by which formula
we may now describe the operations resulting in dreams and the
symptoms of hysteria. This inadequacy results from the converging
of two factors in our development, one of which pertains solely
to the psychic apparatus, and has exercised a determining influence
on the relation of the two systems, while the other operates fluctuatingly,
and introduces motive forces of organic origin into the psychic
life. Both originate in the infantile life, and are a precipitate
of the alteration which our psychic and somatic organism has undergone
since our infantile years.

When I termed one of the psychic processes in the psychic apparatus
the primary process, I did so not only in consideration of its
status and function, but was also able to take account of the
temporal relationship actually involved. So far as we know, a
psychic apparatus possessing only the primary process does not
exist, and is to that extent a theoretical fiction but this at
least is a fact: that the primary processes are present in the
apparatus from the beginning, while the secondary processes only
take shape gradually during the course of life, inhibiting and
overlaying the primary, whilst gaining complete control over them
perhaps only in the prime of life. Owing to this belated arrival
of the secondary processes, the essence of our being, consisting
of unconscious wish-impulses, remains something which cannot be
grasped or inhibited by the preconscious; and its part is once
and for all restricted to indicating the most appropriate paths
for the wish-impulses originating in the unconscious. These unconscious
wishes represent for all subsequent psychic strivings a compulsion
to which they Must submit themselves, although they may perhaps
endeavour to divert them and to guide them to superior aims. In
consequence of this retardation, an extensive region of the memory-material
remains in fact inaccessible to preconscious cathexis.

Now among these wish-impulses originating in the infantile life.
indestructible and incapable of inhibition, there are some the
fulfilments of which have come to be in contradiction with the
purposive ideas of our secondary thinking. The fulfilment of these
wishes would no longer produce an affect of pleasure, but one
of pain; and it is just this conversion of affect that constitutes
the essence of what we call repression. In what manner and by
what motive forces such a conversion can take place constitutes
the problem of repression, which we need here only to touch upon
in passing. It will suffice to note the fact that such a conversion
of affect occurs in the course of development (one need only think
of the emergence of disgust, originally absent in infantile life),
and that it is connected with the activity of the secondary system.
The memories from which the unconscious wish evokes a liberation
of affect have never been accessible to the Pcs, and for that
reason this liberation cannot be inhibited. It is precisely on
account of this generation of affect that these ideas are not
now accessible even by way of the preconscious thoughts to which
they have transferred the energy of the wishes connected with
them. On the contrary, the pain- principle comes into play, and
causes the Pcs to turn away from these transference-thoughts.
These latter are left to themselves, are repressed, and thus,
the existence of a store of infantile memories, withdrawn from
the beginning from the Pcs, becomes the preliminary condition
of repression.

In the most favourable case, the generation of pain terminates
so soon as the cathexis is withdrawn from the transference-thoughts
in the Pcs, and this result shows that the intervention of the
pain-principle is appropriate. It is otherwise, however, if the
repressed unconscious wish receives an organic reinforcement which
it can put at the service of its transference-thoughts, and by
which it can enable them to attempt to break through with their
excitation, even if the cathexis of the Pcs has been taken away
from them. A defensive struggle then ensues, inasmuch as the Pcs
reinforces the opposite to the repressed thoughts (counter- cathexis),
and the eventual outcome is that the transference- thoughts (the
carriers of the unconscious wish) break through in some form of
compromise through symptom-formation. But from the moment that
the repressed thoughts are powerfully cathected by the unconscious
wish-impulse, but forsaken by the preconscious cathexis, they
succumb to the primary psychic process, and aim only at motor
discharge; or, if the way is clear, at hallucinatory revival of
the desired identity of perception. We have already found, empirically,
that the incorrect processes described are enacted only with thoughts
which are in a state of repression. We are now in a position to
grasp yet another part of the total scheme of the facts. These
incorrect Processes are the primary processes of the psychic apparatus;
they occur wherever ideas abandoned by the preconscious cathexis
are left to themselves and can become filled with the uninhibited
energy which flows from the unconscious and strives for discharge.
There are further facts which go to show that the processes described
as incorrect are not really falsifications of our normal procedure,
or defective thinking. but the modes of operation of the psychic
apparatus when freed from inhibition. Thus we see that the process
of the conveyance of the preconscious excitation to motility occurs
in accordance with the same procedure, and that in the linkage
of preconscious ideas with words we may easily find manifested
the same displacements and confusions (which we ascribe to inattention).
Finally, a proof of the increased work made necessary by the inhibition
of these primary modes of procedure might be found in the fact
that we achieve a comical effect, a surplus to be discharged through
laughter, if we allow these modes of thought to come to consciousness.

The theory of the psychoneuroses asserts with absolute certainty
that it can only be sexual wish-impulses from the infantile life,
which have undergone repression (affect-conversion) during the
developmental period of childhood, which are capable of renewal
at later periods of development (whether as a result of our sexual
constitution, which has, of course, grown out of an original bi-sexuality,
or in consequence of unfavourable influences in our sexual life);
and which therefore supply the motive-power for all psychoneurotic
symptom-formation. It is only by the introduction of these sexual
forces that the gaps still demonstrable in the theory of repression
can be filled. Here, I will leave it undecided whether the postulate
of the sexual and infantile holds good for the theory of dreams
as well; I am not completing the latter, because in assuming that
the dream-wish invariably originates in the unconscious I have
already gone a step beyond the demonstrable.[42]
Nor will I inquire further into the nature of the difference between
the play of psychic forces in dream-formation and in the formation
of hysterical symptoms, since there is missing here the needed
fuller knowledge of one of the two things to be compared. But
there is another point which I regard as important, and I will
confess at once that it was only on account of this point that
I entered upon all the discussions concerning the two psychic
systems, their modes of operation, and the fact of repression.
It does not greatly matter whether I have conceived the psychological
relations at issue with approximate correctness, or, as is easily
possible in such a difficult matter, wrongly and imperfectly.
However our views may change about the interpretation of the psychic
censorship or the correct and the abnormal elaboration of the
dream-content. it remains certain that such processes are active
in dream-formation, and that in their essentials they reveal the
closest analogy with the processes observed in the formation of
hysterical symptoms. Now the dream is not a pathological phenomenon;
it does not presuppose any disturbance of our psychic equilibrium;
and it does not leave behind it any weakening of our efficiency
or capacities. The objection that no conclusions can be drawn
about the dreams of healthy persons from my own dreams and from
those of my neurotic patients may be rejected without comment.
If, then, from the nature of the given phenomena we infer the
nature of their motive forces, we find that the psychic mechanism
utilized by the neuroses is not newly-created by a morbid disturbance
that lays hold of the psychic life, but lies in readiness in the
normal structure of our psychic apparatus. The two psychic systems,
the frontier-censorship between them, the inhibition and overlaying
of the one activity by the other, the relations of both to consciousness-
or whatever may take place of these concepts on a juster interpretation
of the actual relations- all these belong to the normal structure
of our psychic instrument, and the dream shows us one of the paths
which lead to a knowledge of this structure. If we wish to be
content with a minimum of perfectly assured additions to our knowledge,
we shall say that the dream affords proof that the suppressed
material continues to exist even in the normal person and remains
capable of psychic activity. Dreams are one of the manifestations
of this suppressed material; theoretically, this is true in all
cases; and in tangible experience, it has been found true in at
least a great number of cases, which happen to display most plainly
the more striking features of the dream-life. The suppressed psychic
material, which in the waking state has been prevented from expression
and cut off from internal perception by the mutual neutralization
of contradictory attitudes, finds ways and means, under the sway
of compromise-formations, of obtruding itself on consciousness
during the night.

Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. [43]
At any rate, the interpretation of dreams is the via regia to
a knowledge of the unconscious element in our psychic life.

By the analysis of dreams we obtain some insight into the composition
of this most marvellous and most mysterious of instruments; it
is true that this only takes us a little way, but it gives us
a start which enables us, setting out from the angle of other
(properly pathological) formations, to penetrate further in our
disjoining of the instrument. For disease- at all events that
which is rightly called functional- does not necessarily presuppose
the destruction of this apparatus, or the establishment of new
cleavages in its interior: it can be explained dynamically by
the strengthening and weakening of the components of the play
of forces, so many of the activities of which are covered up in
normal functioning. It might be shown elsewhere how the fact that
the apparatus is a combination of two instances also permits of
a refinement of its normal functioning which would have been impossible
to a single system.[44]

F. The Unconscious and Consciousness. Reality.

If we look more closely, we may observe that the psychological
considerations examined in the foregoing chapter require us to
assume, not the existence of two systems near the motor end of
the psychic apparatus, but two kinds of processes or courses taken
by excitation. But this does not disturb us; for we must always
be ready to drop our auxiliary ideas, when we think we are in
a position to replace them by something which comes closer to
the unknown reality. Let us now try to correct certain views which
may have taken a misconceived form as long as we regarded the
two systems, in the crudest and most obvious sense, as two localities
within the psychic apparatus- views which have left a precipitate
in the terms repression and penetration. Thus, when we say that
an unconscious thought strives for translation into the preconscious
in order subsequently to penetrate through to consciousness, we
do not mean that a second idea has to be formed, in a new locality,
like a paraphrase, as it were, whilst the original persists by
its side; and similarly, when we speak of penetration into consciousness,
we wish carefully to detach from this notion any idea of a change
of locality. When we say that a preconscious idea is repressed
and subsequently absorbed by the unconscious, we might be tempted
by these images, borrowed from the idea of a struggle for a particular
territory, to assume that an arrangement is really broken up in
the one psychic locality and replaced by a new one in the other
locality. For these comparisons we will substitute a description
which would seem to correspond more closely to the real state
of affairs; we will say that an energic cathexis is shifted to
or withdrawn from a certain arrangement, so that the psychic formation
falls under the domination of a given instance or is withdrawn
from it. Here again we replace a topographical mode of representation
by a dynamic one; it is not the psychic formation that appears
to us as the mobile element, but its innervation.[45]

Nevertheless, I think it expedient and justifiable to continue
to use the illustrative idea of the two systems. We shall avoid
any abuse of this mode of representation if we remember that ideas,
thoughts, and psychic formations in general must not in any case
be localized in organic elements of the nervous system but, so
to speak, between them, where resistances and association-tracks
form the correlate corresponding to them. Everything that can
become an object of internal perception is virtual, like the image
in the telescope produced by the crossing of light-rays. But we
are justified in thinking of the systems- which have nothing psychic
in themselves, and which never become accessible to our psychic
perception- as something similar to the lenses of the telescope,
which project the image. If we continue this comparison, we might
say that the censorship between the two systems corresponds to
the refraction of rays on passing into a new medium.

Thus far, we have developed our psychology on our own responsibility;
it is now time to turn and look at the doctrines prevailing in
modern psychology, and to examine the relation of these to our
theories. The problem of the unconscious in psychology is, according
to the forcible statement of Lipps,[46] less
a psychological problem than the problem of psychology. As long
as psychology disposed of this problem by the verbal explanation
that the psychic is the conscious, and that unconscious psychic
occurrences are an obvious contradiction, there was no possibility
of a physician's observations of abnormal mental states being
turned to any psychological account. The physician and the philosopher
can meet only when both acknowledge that unconscious psychic processes
is the appropriate and justified expression for all established
fact. The physician cannot but reject, with a shrug of his shoulders,
the assertion that consciousness is the indispensable quality
of the psychic; if his respect for the utterances of the philosophers
is still great enough, he may perhaps assume that he and they
do not deal with the same thing and do not pursue the same science.
For a single intelligent observation of the psychic life of a
neurotic, a single analysis of a dream, must force upon him the
unshakable conviction that the most complicated and the most accurate
operations of thought, to which the name of psychic occurrences
can surely not be refused, may take place without arousing consciousness.[47]
The physician, it is true, does not learn of these unconscious
processes until they have produced an effect on consciousness
which admits of communication or observation. But this effect
on consciousness may show a psychic character which differs completely
from the unconscious process, so that internal perception cannot
possibly recognize in the first a substitute for the second. The
physician must reserve himself the right to penetrate, by a Process
of deduction, from the effect on consciousness to the unconscious
psychic process; he learns in this way that the effect on consciousness
is only a remote psychic product of the unconscious process, and
that the latter has not become conscious as such, and has, moreover,
existed and operated without in any way betraying itself to consciousness.
-

Du Prel says: "The problem: what is the psyche, manifestly
requires a preliminary examination as to whether consciousness
and psyche are identical. But it is just this preliminary question
which is answered in the negative by the dream, which shows that
the concept of the psyche extends beyond that of consciousness,
much as the gravitational force of a star extends beyond its sphere
of luminosity" (Philos. d. Mystik, p. 47).

"It is a truth which cannot be sufficiently emphasized that
the concepts of consciousness and of the psyche are not co-extensive"
(p. 306).

A return from the over-estimation of the property of consciousness
is the indispensable preliminary to any genuine insight into the
course of psychic events. As Lipps has said, the unconscious must
be accepted as the general basis of the psychic life. The unconscious
is the larger circle which includes the smaller circle of the
conscious; everything conscious has a preliminary unconscious
stage, whereas the unconscious can stop at this stage, and yet
claim to be considered a full psychic function. The unconscious
is the true psychic reality; in its inner nature it is just as
much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it
is just as imperfectly communicated to us by the data of consciousness
as is the external world by the reports of our sense-organs.

We get rid of a series of dream-problems which have claimed much
attention from earlier writers on the subject when the old antithesis
between conscious life and dream-life is discarded, and the unconscious
psychic assigned to its proper place. Thus, many of the achievements
which are a matter for wonder in a dream are now no longer to
be attributed to dreaming, but to unconscious thinking, which
is active also during the day. If the dream seems to make play
with a symbolical representation of the body, as Scherner has
said, we know that this is the work of certain unconscious phantasies,
which are probably under the sway of sexual impulses and find
expression not only in dreams, but also in hysterical phobias
and other symptoms. If the dream continues and completes mental
work begun during the day, and even brings valuable new ideas
to light, we have only to strip off the dream-disguise from this,
as the contribution of the dream-work, and a mark of the assistance
of dark powers in the depths of the psyche (cf. the devil in Tartini's
sonata-dream). The intellectual achievement as such belongs to
the same psychic forces as are responsible for all such achievements
during the day. We are probably much too inclined to over-estimate
the conscious character even of intellectual and artistic production.
From the reports of certain writers who have been highly productive,
such as Goethe and Helmholtz, we learn, rather, that the most
essential and original part of their creations came to them in
the form of inspirations, and offered itself to their awareness
in an almost completed state. In other cases, where there is a
concerted effort of all the psychic forces, there is nothing strange
in the fact that conscious activity, too, lends its aid. But it
is the much-abused privilege of conscious activity to hide from
us all other activities wherever it participates.

It hardly seems worth while to take up the historical significance
of dreams as a separate theme. Where, for instance, a leader has
been impelled by a dream to engage in a bold undertaking, the
success of which has had the effect of changing history, a new
problem arises only so long as the dream is regarded as a mysterious
power and contrasted with other more familiar psychic forces.
The problem disappears as soon as we regard the dream as a form
of expression for impulses to which a resistance was attached
during the day, whilst at night they were able to draw reinforcement
from deep-lying sources of excitation.[48]
But the great respect with which the ancient peoples regarded
dreams is based on a just piece of psychological divination. It
is a homage paid to the unsubdued and indestructible element in
the human soul, to the demonic power which furnishes the dream-
wish, and which we have found again in our unconscious.

It is not without purpose that I use the expression in our unconscious,
for what we so call does not coincide with the unconscious of
the philosophers, nor with the unconscious of Lipps. As they use
the term, it merely means the opposite of the conscious. That
there exist not only conscious but also unconscious psychic processes
is the opinion at issue, which is so hotly contested and so energetically
defended. Lipps enunciates the more comprehensive doctrine that
everything psychic exists as unconscious, but that some of it
may exist also as conscious. But it is not to prove this doctrine
that we have adduced the phenomena of dreams and hysterical symptom-formation;
the observation of normal life alone suffices to establish its
correctness beyond a doubt. The novel fact that we have learned
from the analysis of psycho-pathological formations, and indeed
from the first member of the group, from dreams, is that the unconscious-
and hence all that is psychic- occurs as a function of two separate
systems, and that as such it occurs even in normal psychic life.
There are consequently two kinds of unconscious, which have not
as yet been distinguished by psychologists. Both are unconscious
in the psychological sense; but in our sense the first, which
we call Ucs, is likewise incapable of consciousness; whereas the
second we call Pcs because its excitations, after the observance
of certain rules, are capable of reaching consciousness; perhaps
not before they have again undergone censorship, but nevertheless
regardless of the Ucs system. The fact that in order to attain
consciousness the excitations must pass through an unalterable
series, a succession of instances, as is betrayed by the changes
produced in them by the censorship, has enabled us to describe
them by analogy in spatial terms. We described the relations of
the two systems to each other and to consciousness by saying that
the system Pcs is like a screen between the system Ucs and consciousness.
The system Pcs not only bars access to consciousness, but also
controls the access to voluntary motility, and has control of
the emission of a mobile cathectic energy, a portion of which
is familiar to us as attention.[49]

We must also steer clear of the distinction between the super-
conscious and the subconscious, which has found such favour in
the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such
a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of what is psychic
and what is conscious.

What role is now left, in our representation of things, to the
phenomenon of consciousness, once so all-powerful and over- shadowing
all else? None other than that of a sense-organ for the perception
of psychic qualities. According to the fundamental idea of our
schematic attempt we can regard conscious perception only as the
function proper to a special system for which the abbreviated
designation Cs commends itself. This system we conceive to be
similar in its mechanical characteristics to the perception-system
P, and hence excitable by qualities, and incapable of retaining
the trace of changes: i.e., devoid of memory. The psychic apparatus
which, with the sense-organ of the P-systems, is turned to the
outer world, is itself the outer world for the sense-organ of
Cs, whose teleological justification depends on this relationship.
We are here once more confronted with the principle of the succession
of instances which seems to dominate the structure of the apparatus.
The material of excitation flows to the sense-organ Cs from two
sides: first from the P-system, whose excitation, qualitatively
conditioned, probably undergoes a new elaboration until it attains
conscious perception; and, secondly, from the interior of the
apparatus itself, whose quantitative processes are perceived as
a qualitative series of pleasures and pains once they have reached
consciousness after undergoing certain changes.

The philosophers, who became aware that accurate and highly complicated
thought-structures are possible even without the co- operation
of consciousness, thus found it difficult to ascribe any function
to consciousness; it appeared to them a superfluous mirroring
of the completed psychic process. The analogy of our Cs system
with the perception-systems relieves us of this embarrassment.
We see that perception through our sense-organs results in directing
an attention-cathexis to the paths along which the incoming sensory
excitation diffuses itself; the qualitative excitation of the
P-system serves the mobile quantity in the psychic apparatus as
a regulator of its discharge. We may claim the same function for
the overlying sense-organ of the Cs system. By perceiving new
qualities, it furnishes a new contribution for the guidance and
suitable distribution of the mobile cathexis-quantities. By means
of perceptions of pleasure and pain, it influences the course
of the cathexes within the psychic apparatus, which otherwise
operates unconsciously and by the displacement of quantities.
It is probable that the pain- principle first of all regulates
the displacements of cathexis automatically, but it is quite possible
that consciousness contributes a second and more subtle regulation
of these qualities, which may even oppose the first, and perfect
the functional capacity of the apparatus, by placing it in a position
contrary to its original design, subjecting even that which induces
pain to cathexis and to elaboration. We learn from neuro- psychology
that an important part in the functional activity of the apparatus
is ascribed to these regulations by the qualitative excitations
of the sense-organs. The automatic rule of the primary pain-principle,
together with the limitation of functional capacity bound up with
it, is broken by the sensory regulations, which are themselves
again automatisms. We find that repression, which, though originally
expedient, nevertheless finally brings about a harmful lack of
inhibition and of psychic control, overtakes memories much more
easily than it does perceptions, because in the former there is
no additional cathexis from the excitation of the psychic sense-organs.
Whilst an idea which is to be warded off may fail to become conscious
because it has succumbed to repression, it may on other occasions
come to be repressed simply because it has been withdrawn from
conscious perception on other grounds. These are clues which we
make use of in therapy in order to undo accomplished repressions.

The value of the hyper-cathexis which is produced by the regulating
influence of the Cs sense-organs on the mobile quantity is demonstrated
in a teleological context by nothing more clearly than by the
creation of a new series of qualities, and consequently a new
regulation, which constitutes the prerogative of man over animals.
For the mental processes are in themselves unqualitative except
for the excitations of pleasure and pain which accompany them:
which, as we know, must be kept within limits as possible disturbers
of thought. In order to endow them with quality, they are associated
in man with verbal memories, the qualitative residues of which
suffice to draw upon them the attention of consciousness, which
in turn endows thought with a new mobile cathexis.

It is only on a dissection of hysterical mental processes that
the manifold nature of the problems of consciousness becomes apparent.
One then receives the impression that the transition from the
preconscious to the conscious cathexis is associated with a censorship
similar to that between Ucs and Pcs. This censorship, too, begins
to act only when a certain quantitative limit is reached, so that
thought-formations which are not very intense escape it. All possible
cases of detention from consciousness and of penetration into
consciousness under certain restrictions are included within the
range of psychoneurotic phenomena; all point to the intimate and
twofold connection between the censorship and consciousness. I
shall conclude these psychological considerations with the record
of two such occurrences.

On the occasion of a consultation a few years ago, the patient
was an intelligent-looking girl with a simple, unaffected manner.
She was strangely attired; for whereas a woman's dress is usually
carefully thought out to the last pleat, one of her stockings
was hanging down and two of the buttons of her blouse were undone.
She complained of pains in one of her legs, and exposed her calf
without being asked to do so. Her chief complaint, however, was
as follows: She had a feeling in her body as though something
were sticking into it which moved to and fro and shook her through
and through. This sometimes seemed to make her whole body stiff.
On hearing this, my colleague in consultation looked at me: the
trouble was quite obvious to him. To both of us it seemed peculiar
that this suggested nothing to the patient's mother, though she
herself must repeatedly have been in the situation described by
her child. As for the girl, she had no idea of the import of her
words, or she would never have allowed them to pass her lips.
Here the censorship had been hoodwinked so successfully that under
the mask of an innocent complaint a phantasy was admitted to consciousness
which otherwise would have remained in the preconscious.

Another example: I began the psycho-analytic treatment of a boy
fourteen who was suffering from tic convulsif, hysterical vomiting,
headache, etc., by assuring him that after closing his eyes he
would see pictures or that ideas would occur to him, which he
was to communicate to me. He replied by describing pictures. The
last impression he had received before coming to me was revived
visually in his memory. He had been playing a game of checkers
with his uncle, and now he saw the checkerboard before him. He
commented on various positions that were favourable or unfavourable,
on moves that were not safe to make. He then saw a dagger lying
on the checker-board- an object belonging to his father, but which
his phantasy laid on the checker-board. Then a sickle was lying
on the board; a scythe was added; and finally, he saw the image
of an old peasant mowing the grass in front of his father's house
far away. A few days later I discovered the meaning of this series
of pictures. Disagreeable family circumstances had made the boy
excited and nervous. Here was a case of a harsh, irascible father,
who had lived unhappily with the boy's mother, and whose educational
methods consisted of threats; he had divorced his gentle and delicate
wife, and remarried; one day he brought home a young woman as
the boy's new mother. The illness of the fourteen-year-old boy
developed a few days later. It was the suppressed rage against
his father that had combined these images into intelligible allusions.
The material was furnished by a mythological reminiscence. The
sickle was that with which Zeus castrated his father; the scythe
and the image of the peasant represented Kronos, the violent old
man who devours his children, and upon whom Zeus wreaks his vengeance
in so unfilial a manner. The father's marriage gave the boy an
opportunity of returning the reproaches and threats which the
child had once heard his father utter because he played with his
genitals (the draught-board; the prohibited moves; the dagger
with which one could kill). We have here long-impressed memories
and their unconscious derivatives which, under the guise of meaningless
pictures, have slipped into consciousness by the devious paths
opened to them.

If I were asked what is the theoretical value of the study of
dreams, I should reply that it lies in the additions to psychological
knowledge and the beginnings of an understanding of the neuroses
which we thereby obtain. Who can foresee the importance a thorough
knowledge of the structure and functions of the psychic apparatus
may attain, when even our present state of knowledge permits of
successful therapeutic intervention in the curable forms of psychoneuroses?
But, it may be asked, what of the practical value of this study
in regard to a knowledge of the psyche and discovery of the hidden
peculiarities of individual character? Have not the unconscious
impulses revealed by dreams the value of real forces in the psychic
life? Is the ethical significance of the suppressed wishes to
be lightly disregarded, since, just as they now create dreams,
they may some day create other things?

I do not feel justified in answering these questions. I have not
followed up this aspect of the problem of dreams. In any case,
however, I believe that the Roman Emperor was in the wrong in
ordering one of his subjects to be executed because the latter
had dreamt that he had killed the Emperor. He should first of
all have endeavoured to discover the significance of the man's
dreams; most probably it was not what it seemed to be. And even
if a dream of a different content had actually had this treasonable
meaning, it would still have been well to recall the words of
Plato- that the virtuous man contents himself with dreaming of
that which the wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore
of the opinion that dreams should be acquitted of evil. Whether
any reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, I cannot
say. Reality must, of course, be denied to all transitory and
intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the unconscious wishes,
brought to their final and truest expression, we should still
do well to remember that psychic reality is a special form of
existence which must not be confounded with material reality.
It seems, therefore, unnecessary that people should refuse to
accept the responsibility for the immorality of their dreams.
With an appreciation of the mode of functioning of the psychic
apparatus, and an insight into the relations between conscious
and unconscious, all that is ethically offensive in our dream-life
and the life of phantasy for the most part disappears.

"What a dream has told us of our relations to the present
(reality) we will then seek also in our consciousness and we must
not be surprised if we discover that the monster we saw under
the magnifying-glass of the analysis is a tiny little infusorian"
(H. Sachs).

For all practical purposes in judging human character, a man's
actions and conscious expressions of thought are in most cases
sufficient. Actions, above all, deserve to be placed in the front
rank; for many impulses which penetrate into consciousness are
neutralized by real forces in the psychic life before they find
issue in action; indeed, the reason why they frequently do not
encounter any psychic obstacle on their path is because the unconscious
is certain of their meeting with resistances later. In any case,
it is highly instructive to learn something of the intensively
tilled soil from which our virtues proudly emerge. For the complexity
of human character, dynamically moved in all directions, very
rarely accommodates itself to the arbitrament of a simple alternative,
as our antiquated moral philosophy would have it.

And what of the value of dreams in regard to our knowledge of
the future? That, of course, is quite out of the question. One
would like to substitute the words: in regard to our knowledge
of the past. For in every sense a dream has its origin in the
past. The ancient belief that dreams reveal the future is not
indeed entirely devoid of the truth. By representing a wish as
fulfilled the dream certainly leads us into the future; but this
future, which the dreamer accepts as his present, has been shaped
in the likeness of the past by the indestructible wish.